For years I considered going into counseling, becoming a psychotherpist. The thing is, I experienced ambivalence in my decision-making because I was stumped by my awareness of one thing: people who have experienced extreme and/or continual abuse or trauma tend to be very difficult to treat. That trauma, as I saw it, was so ingrained and held within their body and emotions that healing them would be a difficult and long-term process. I didn't want to experience the constant disappointment that I saw as inherent in a traditional psychotherapeutic environment.
I had a friend at the time that began to study EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. I saw how she and her clients used this to 'undo' past traumatic events. I was reinspired by the idea of psychotherapy! I knew that if I could include something like EMDR in my own session with clients, then I would have a better chance of helping the ones who had had traumatic experiences.
The only problem was, EMDR generally requires that the person actually go through a lot of the original emotional (and sometimes physical) pain in order to then heal, or release it from their consciousness. I didn't like this idea, and I had a feeling that there might be a better way. At the time I didn't know what that tool was. Now, years later, I do. And it's EFT.
EFT (and its sister techniques, one of which is TAT at tatlife.com) is able to be employed in the healing of trauma WITHOUT the person having to EMOTIONALLY RE-LIVE the original traumatic experience. This is a HUGE boon and puts EFT on the leading-edge of Mind-Body medicine. One of the EFT techniques that clearly accomplishes this is called the Tearless Trauma Technique.
Below is a short letter from Steve Wells (and EFT practioner in the UK) to Gary Craig, EFT's founder and creator of the wonderful EFT database at http://www.emofree.com.
Keep in mind that the numbers Steve is referring to here stand for 'intensity levels' of the emotional or physical pain that the participant currently experiences. It's a scale of 0-10, with the higher numbers begin higher levels of pain or upset.
Steve Wells reports on the Tearless Trauma Technique
Hi Gary,
I just spent the weekend presenting a personal development seminar incorporating EFT and other Energy Therapy techniques. I tried out the Tearless Trauma Technique and it worked just as you have described.
16 people, all of whom were 8, 9, or 10 when guessing the intensity of the trauma initially. 11 went to zero or near zero after 4 rounds of tapping when asked to vividly re-imagine the traumatic incident. The others were all at 4-5, and 2 more rounds took care of most of this. I offered to help one woman whose SUDS level remained at a 4 during the break but she came up and told me she really saw how she could get beyond this herself and wanted to do so as she felt empowered by the technique.
Most of the participants were absolutely astounded when they tried to re-access the feelings and weren't able to. The most outstanding result however was by one gentleman who reported that an incredible feeling of sadness he'd been experiencing almost his whole life regarding his father was absolutely gone and he was now experiencing a feeling of complete peace. You should have seen the way his face shone. This guy had previously had a taste of EFT in another seminar I was running. He came to this one because after he used EFT to deal with his constant anger and anxiety, his wife said it was like getting a new husband. Needless to say, she was VERY happy for him to come and do more. I think now his own mother wouldn't recognise him.
To echo your words from last years "Ultimate Therapist" Seminar Gary: "God I love this job!"
Love and best wishes,
Steve Wells
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Some links that you can begin with for your further research about EFT, TAT and trauma are:
http://www.energypsych.org/associations/6267/files/10tips-for-trauma-recovery.pdf
http://www.emofree.com/Trauma/trauma-ptsd-farrell.htm
http://www.emofree.com/Trauma/specific-maggie-trauma.htm
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Posted by: ADHD Therapy | January 05, 2010 at 09:53 AM